


Honey, You're Familiar

by Angels_Artillery



Series: So many indulgent Mechs' fics [2]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Brian is patient, Established Relationship, Fluff, Jonny is stubborn, Kinda?, M/M, Waltzing, cliches, domestic mechs, they love each other So Much ok??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:55:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29793612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angels_Artillery/pseuds/Angels_Artillery
Summary: Brian just tried to teach Jonny to waltz. And he is a STUBBORN BASTARD about it. And also he just deserves love, guys. Please.
Relationships: Drumbot Brian/Jonny d'Ville
Series: So many indulgent Mechs' fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193372
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Honey, You're Familiar

“1, 2, 3... 1, 2, 3… Jonny,” Brian paused from his rhythmic counting, looking down at Jonny with a slight grin, far from reflecting Jonny's look of disgruntled annoyance. “Jonny you need to count with me. It’s a 3/4 rhythm. It’s one-”

“Oh for fucks sake Brian. I’m not a robot with a bloody internal metronome going at all times,” He grumbled, looking down at his feet, then where his hand rested on Brian’s shoulder. Everywhere but his face.

“Technically,” Brian tapped his chest over the metal ticking heart inside, “You do. But Jonny, I’m sure you can do it.” a deep breath. “Ok, when I start counting, you are gonna follow my feet. When I step back, you step forwards. Alright? It’s just like the start of a two-step,” he encouraged. “Last try, I promise,” The two had been at it for an hour, and the madman was getting damn sick of messing up over and over. Jonny had gotten himself into letting Brian teach him to dance. It’s not like there was nothing better to do.

“This is absolutely not like a two-step,” Jonny grumbled, but still followed when Brian started. Counting allowed, bright and clear for Jonny, Brian couldn’t help but admire the concentration on his love’s face as he tried to follow his steps. He moved slowly at first, slowly enough that Jonny could actually keep up. Gradually, as Jonny caught up to consistency, Brian started to go faster. He led with his body well, guiding Jonny with both his arms and torso, moving like this was something he didn’t even need to think about.

The _tap tap-tap-tap_ of bare metal feet on metal floors paralleled the gentle humming of a 3/4 tune that Jonny had taken up quite well. The buzzing gave them something new to keep time to, and Brian soon dropped out his numbers. With a kind smile that Jonny didn’t notice, preoccupied with watching his feet on the floor, Brian began to lead him into a spinning pattern across the floor. No longer going in the same square on the same area of floor felt much better, and it felt as though Brian was floating as he led a slightly stumbly Jonny around the room. The world seemed crystalline in the light of the bridge, no sun reflecting into the crafted silver room, thousands of years old, just like the men twirling around her. Walls still in her original beautiful condition regardless of the time because of the loving hands of her girlfriend and her pilot.

“You’re doing so well, my love,” The Drumbot whispered, his smile audible in his words so clearly that Jonny was compelled to look up and meet the artificially green eyes set into his partner's head, bright with a kind light. And an LED one too. Jonny got lost in them as they swirled around the room.

Hard boot soles hit metal and suddenly Brian was thrown off balance. The First Mate’s thick boots had collided with Brian’s ankles, too caught up in the man in front of him to keep track of his heavy feet. It brought them both tumbling to the ground, the otherwise loud clanging of his metal body dampened by his long, thick, green coat and cuffed brown slacks as his back hit the floor.

Jonny landed above him in a classically romcom position, a hand on either side of Brian’s head, boxing him in. Shirt fabric had bunched up where Brian still gripped Jonny’s waist. He was honestly just holding a fistful of it as opposed to his partner at this point. Looking up at him from below in the cool blue light of The Aurora’s bridge did a number on his fragile heart, causing it to skip a beat in the single second of stillness between hitting the floor and Jonny cursing.

“God- fucking hell- dancing is stupid Bri-”

“You did so well Jonny,” Brian beamed proudly, hardly noticing that he’d interrupted. “Here, sit up, sit up.” A gentle swatting at Jonny’s hip til he sat back, a knee on either side of Brian’s own extended legs. The fact he’d not stormed off in his frustration meant enough to Brian that he felt his chest get warm. It was artificial of course, but Brian chose to ignore that.

It was real enough for him to know it was the same love that he’d once felt so many millennia ago in a more human body than this one. And he recognized it as the same love he felt every time he saw Jonny smile or Tim put his hair up in a braid before jumping down onto the battlefield. The love he felt when he sat quietly with Ivy, pouring over old texts in unfamiliar languages, or watching Ashes blow out a long stream of smoke, fiddling with the buttons on their sleeve in an old nervous habit. The love he felt when he watched Marius and The Toy Soldier scrambling around the kitchen on “Family Dinner Nights”, excited for a new recipe from a new planet or as Raphaella took him apart, trying to learn all she could about his machinery, demonstrating her care in that own special way.

Once he was situated and sitting up, Brian took both of Jonny’s hands and folded them in his, laying them in his lap between them.

“You were doing really well for the first time, Jonny. You even stayed in time with me as we started to spin and move around,” Jonny looked around, just realizing that, yes indeed, they were in a very different part of the room, much closer to the control panel and wide-open window looking out into a vast space around them, far from any sun or planets.

“Doing well til I fucked it up,” Jonny bitched, feeling bad for messing up yet again with something so simple Brian was trying to show him. His eyes stayed averted, pointed still at a spot on the floor, just left of Brian’s ribs. Brian pursed his lips. Cold brass rested on Jonny’s cheek, Brian’s palm cupping his face on the left. It wasn’t to force him to make eye contact, just to remind him that Brian wasn’t mad at him. Rarely ever could he be.

“Jonny, if you don’t believe me, check-”

“Don’t hold your ‘superior mortality’ over me,” he bit with a sudden, far more genuine aggression, but looked into Brian’s sympathetic face. He flinched when Jonny snapped. The small kind of flinch that was just visible in the flexing of neck muscles and overly hard blink. The tilt of the head a fraction of an inch to the side. but when Jonny noticed, he mirrored the action, guilt washing over him. Even with millennia behind them, they still had so much left unresolved.

“I’m not. I just- You know what?” he took a deep breath that he didn’t really need, moving instead to placate the situation. “Jonny you did very well for a beginner and I’m proud of you. But we’re tired. And I think this is a good stopping place.” His voice moved slowly and light, very deliberate like a dancer.

“Yeah…” Jonny moved uneasily, torn between running off and staying there, his accidental upset washing him with genuine guilt. Brian didn’t deserve any harsh words. Not now. But the look on Brian’s face begged ‘ _stay. I love you and I want you to stay_ ’. So Jonny did. Jonny stayed.

“Here,” Brian chuckled and pulled Jonny into his lap proper, crossing his legs and sliding over til his back was against the wall, leaving the First Mate the room to lay against his chest if he so pleased, which he did, effectively nuzzling against the crisp white fabric of Brian’s button-down in an attempt to get comfortable. Once settled like a bird in a nest, Jonny let a long sigh out, reached for one of Brian’s hands where they sat clasped around him. As his scarred, twisted fingers slid down the mostly unmarred metal of Brian’s arm, they caught on something.

Jonny’s fingers ran over the indentation of a cross, a brand in Brian’s metal arm, and sighed. Carmilla hadn’t known what it was when she’d built his body, assuming it to be some kind of body ornament common on his planet. She had been wrong, of course. It was the burnt scar from the priest's hot iron shaped into a patriarchal cross, bearing three deep scores over one long one, marking him a ‘witch’ before casting his body out into the sky, arm still healing from the instant cauterization.

And metal didn’t brand like skin did.

“This makes me so mad,” Jonny muttered. “If I wasn’t positive he was already dead, I’d go back and kill him myself. You saved his life. And-” Brian placed a cool kiss on his head, hand returning to cup his face where Jonny held onto his wrist still.

“Jonny, it’s ok,” there was a bit of an admiration-filled laugh in Brian’s voice as he ran a finger over Jonny’s cheekbone, then his lips. “May I..?”

“Of course. Don’t need to be so soft about it,” Jonny rolled his eyes, playing his appreciativeness as annoyance. There were plenty of times when Jonny was a.o.k with Brian just coming up and kissing him. In fact, he often preferred just being shut up by a bruising kiss or something of that ilk, especially with Brian in particular due to his vastly larger size and strength. Even by comparison to Tim or Marius or Ashes. There was something particularly… wonderful about big metal hands pushing him into a wall, or holding him up by his hips, leaving him to chase the bitter metal taste of his lips. But sometimes (like now) he couldn't help but appreciate the desire for permission and assurance.

Despite the soft give of the tightly woven brass that was his skin and the fact they’d been sanded down to smoothness, his lips still felt like metal, with no proper spring or grace of real humanity. Regardless, Jonny met him and melted into the coolness. He let himself fall deep into the tender care of the one supporting him, feeling safe and loved as the arm not pinned between himself and the metal body of Brian reached up to tangle in the hair in the back of his head, pulling his mouth away to push Brian’s forehead to his with a gentle clunk.

“I.. you know…”

“Yeah, I know,” Brian confirmed, exhaling with a smile. "I love you too,"

**Author's Note:**

> This made me so happy to write, and that you to @space_city_traffic for looking over it for me, and for so much kind encouragement!!! Oh, and the title is from 'From Eden' by Hozier


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